Tech Entrepreneur to Practical Academic

Tech Entrepreneur to Practical Academic

Clips

Get ready Dear Rockstars, because this week’s episode will floor you with the world of fast track startup. In a collision of timing and dedicated spirit, David Metcalf was launched into internet startup in the early hours of the internet. Working for NASA, he managed a lab that developed educational technology that would draw in his first clients, the emerging Silicone Valley.

He explains how despite naysayers, he developed practices to have his cake and eat it too, managing a marriage, a mammoth startup, and getting his PhD. David’s keen awareness of his circumstances also enabled him to exit at the appropriate time and move onto a pair of golden handcuffs that allowed him to explore new avenues on new continents with the freedom of his earned role.

And though all this is enough for one lifetime’s achievement, this isn’t the end of David’s story. At a turning point the man many called entrepreneur, businessman and even “brain on a string” left it all for the academic world. He introduces us to the term “PracAdemic” the infusion of the practical and the academic, and divulges how he’s learned to make the academic setting work for his community.

“I’ve never really fit in in education,” he explains, but that hasn’t stopped him from using his position in academia to reach new places of influence and connection. Fitting in isn’t always an asset, especially in the world of business, but knowing how to connect the dots and find common ground is crucial. In 2006 he started the Mixed Emerging Technology and Innovation Lab (METIL) at UCF’s Institute for Simulation and Training.

Dr. Metcalf has built a 20 year career on emerging technology and innovation, developing more than 500 online courses and multimillion dollar projects, but he started it all with a vision in undergrad of studying art and technology. His friends told him he would waste his life in the arts, but his calling, and his desire to serve has led him to unprecedented influence and success.